This is a subscriber-only article
It looks like you're browsing in private mode
FRIDAY'S Tattersalls Ireland Breeze Up Sale posted some very encouraging results.
The clearance rate was almost 89% and the average price was up 1% on last year. The median price dropped from €30,000 to €28,000 but total spending was up by almost €1 million on 2023, from just 18 extra sales.
Buyers were present in large numbers, many of them first-time visitors, and there had been the usual mix of fine pinhooking results.
A total of 21 lots sold for six-figure sums, compared with 18 last year.
Twelve months ago, Mark McStay’s Avenue Bloodstock signed for a son of Sioux Nation from Katie Walsh’s Greenhills Farm at €240,000, the second-highest price at the Tattersalls Ireland Breeze Up Sale. Named Letsbefrankaboutit, the colt joined Paddy Twomey to race for Alymer Stud, and second time out won the Group 3 Heider Family Stables Round Tower Stakes. Sadly, he died soon afterwards.
Yesterday, McStay was back in place to secure a filly this time by Sioux Nation, and she too came from Greenhills and will join Twomey’s stable for an existing owner. The filly was purchased as a yearling for €60,000 and the agent saw off a dogged David Spratt when the gavel fell at €370,000.
McStay said: “This filly came highly recommended by Katie. We had to dig very deep to get her, but there are no regrets; let’s hope she is lucky. The new owner is very happy and delighted to be able to send another horse to Paddy.
“Katie does a great job, she is one of the best in the business, and her recommendations stand for a lot. I am not a clock worshipper but she did very well, and Katie got paid accordingly. The demand for good horses around the world is a strong as ever.”
In 2022, Walsh set a sale record when she sold a Saxon Warrior filly for €520,000. She has regularly featured at the top of the breeze up markets, and yesterday was no different. Earlier in the session she sold another six-figure filly, a daughter of Starspangledbanner, for €100,000 to Ollie Sangster Racing.
Walsh has enjoyed plenty of success at the Tattersalls Ireland Breeze Up, and was this year’s leading consignor at the Tattersalls Craven Sale by average. The May-born Starspangledbanner is a half-sister to the sprinter Rohann, and his 10 wins include the Group 2 Sandy Lane Stakes.
McStay and Twomey combined a little earlier to spend €120,000 on M C Thoroughbreds’ Teofilo colt out of a Pivotal mare.
GAELIC Bloodstock missed out on Greenhills’ Sioux Nation top lot, but proved the winner when buying a colt by Earthlight for €300,000.
“He is gorgeous,” said David Spratt, who was bidding in person. “We have no plans as yet; he will come home to the farm to start with.”
The colt was consigned by Conor Hoban’s Beechlea Bloodstock. Hoban commented: “He is for our client Rathcarin Stud who bred him. We had high expectations coming here based on this colt’s homework. We thought he’d sell well and we got more than we had thought. Credit has to go to Tattersalls Ireland for today. There is great turn out, plenty of horses are getting sold, and this is definitely the strongest sale we have been at this spring.”
Sioux Nation was responsible for two of the four lots last year to bring €200,000 or more, and he proved just as popular this year. His daughter of the four-time winner Coto who was bred, owned and trained by Matty Tynan, was entrusted to his neighbours to consign, Ryan Conran and Pamela O’Rourke of Lacka House Stables. The filly sold to Stroud Coleman for €270,000.
Tynan said: “We had two plans, to either do this or race her ourselves. I’d love to have raced her, but if you can get a hand of money, you are not going to win it racing.” Conran, who has been consigning with O’Rourke since 2020, said: “Matty bought her dam here at the September Sale for just €8,000. She won her two-year-old maiden, and went on to run in the Queen Mary. She was very quick.
“This filly came to me in October and she has been brilliant ever since. We are just delighted to have the opportunity to sell her for our neighbours and good friends. We have had a great year; we had nine to sell and they have all sold, sold well and gone to good homes.”
Matt Coleman said: “She is a very smart filly; she breezed in one of the quickest times of the day. She is a filly with plenty of size, scope and quality and from a very fast family. In my opinion Sioux Nation is upgrading his mares, and this mare could run anyway and has thrown a filly with plenty of talent the way she breezed.”
Willie Browne's Mocklershill sold two of top 10 lots.
Before the halfway stage he sold a son of Profitable out of a winning Dandy Man mare for €270,000. The colt had been acquired for only €6,000 at the Goffs Autumn Yearling Sale.
Bought by JB Bloodstock, named after Browne’s son Jamie, as a yearling, the colt this time was hammered down to Matt Coleman. The agent explained the colt’s appeal, and said: “He should be ready to rock and roll and, hopefully, he will be fast as a two-year-old. He also has plenty of size and scope, so he should be more than just a two-year-old.”
Browne was all smiles as he said: “Speed is everything. Thankfully we had it here, though in fairness he was always a good-looking horse. It is a great story for us.”
Very late in the day Mocklershill sold a colt by US sire Twirling Candy out of a Grade 1 winning mare for €190,000 but this was a case of breaking even at best as Browne paid $200,000 for him at Keeneland last September.
The buyer was Dr Khaled Salami and the underbidders were agents Justin Casse and Mark McStay.
THE sale got off to the best possible start when the fourth lot of the day, a Too Darn Hot colt from John Bourke’s Hyde Park Stud who did a good time in the breeze, sold for €210,000 to regular breeze up buyer Richard Brown of Blandford Bloodstock.
He was sourced for 20,000gns at the Tattersalls December Yearling Sale, and is out of the Mastercraftsman listed-placed mare Tears Of The Sun, a half-sister to the Group 3 Prestige Stakes winner Kilmah.
Brown said: “The stallion is doing it all over and looks special, and that sire line is pretty potent. He is a real baby and only a May foal. He will be going into the field now for a month with Richard Morgan Evans. He won’t be going into training for a while.”
Later in the afternoon, Hyde Park sold a Kodi Bear half-sister to five winners to Stroud Coleman for €125,000. Bourke bred her from the winning Exceed And Excel mare Kummel Excess. He bought the dam for only 6,000gns eight years ago and this was more than double the best price he previously received for one of her offspring.
Another early highlight of the morning’s trade was the sale of Glending Stables’ Blue Point son of the two-year-old winner Timpani to Kevin Ross for €125,000. He will race for Paul and Clare Rooney. The vendor is responsible for the champion Vandeek and the top lot at the recent Tattersalls Craven Sale.
Jack Cantillon’s pinhook of a Kingman filly for 30,000gns proved a shrewd move. With Ard Erin Stud, he sold the filly for €110,000 to Billy Jackson Stops’ J S Bloodstock, and the agent was buying for Opulence Thoroughbreds. Jackson Stops said: “She represents a bit of value. The price equates to £100,000 and is way less than the sire’s covering fee, and we have seen that she can gallop which gives us a bit of a chance.”
During the morning session, Tom Brickley’s Ard Erin sold a Kodiac colt for €120,000 to Ted Durcan and trainer Richard Hughes, The half-brother to the dam of multiple Group 3 winner Oscula is from the family of last weekend’s Group 1 Lockinge Stakes runner-up Charyn who was a Group 2 winner as a juvenile.
Charyn is a son of Dark Angel, and that sire produced the last of the 13 six-figure lots as we went to print (there were 18 last year). This was Brown Island Stables’ colt out of a Dubawi half-sister to the stakes-winning dam of Grade 1 winners Althiqa and Mysterious Night. Johnny Collins paid 20,000gns for him last year, and this time received €140,000 from Mark McStay’s Avenue Bloodstock and Paddy Twomey.
Late in the session a Coulsty colt was bought by trainer Kevin Ryan, Brendan Holland taking instructions over the telephone, at €200,000. The sale represented a fine pinhooking profit for Knockgraffon, the colt having been purchased last year for €21,000.
He is a half-brother to the Italian multiple winner and listed fourth-placed Francisca Pink (by Helmet), and an own-brother to Crystal City, now named High Cloud and shipped to run in Hong Kong after winning his two-year-old maiden on his second career start.
Even later in the session a wildcard entry, an Oasis Dream colt from the Slattery family's Meadowview Stables, was bought by BBA Ireland for €150,000, the colt bought last autumn for just 10,000gns at the Tattersalls October Book 2 Sale.
He is out of the Sea The Stars mare Halfwaytothemoon, a half-sister to Biographer (by Montjeu), winner of Listed Noel Murless Cup and second in the Group 2 Long Distance Cup.
Third dam is the blacktype winner Korveya, dam of the five-time Group 1 winner Hector Protector, the champion three-year-old filly Bosra Sham and the French classic winner Shanghai.
SHARING OPTIONS: